ThermalCUBE™ Energy

FACT: By using nighttime power harvest and transport over the under capacity night grid, the resulting on-site pre-distributed Demand Storage of Air Conditioning needs, increases daytime capacities in excess of an additional 40%.

Existing Marketplace Facts

Utility companies currently waste millions of MW of electrical power annually due to lack of storage, and wasteful production methods. Due to daytime Peak energy demand, consumers spend additional HUNDREDs of BILLIONS of DOLLARS per year for their daytime energy needs while the nighttime production often goes to waste. Renewable Energies are difficult to incorporate into the existing grid systems due to the dynamic nature of production, often occurring at undesirable times and the Grid's inability to economically 'ramp-up' to accept the increased capacity without severe system stress/congestion.

Many utility companies are instituting tariffs to incorporate their costs of purchasing underutilized renewables into the 'normal' costs that will be paid by consumers.On average, upwards of FORTY PERCENT (up to 65% in Sun Belt areas) of daytime peak power demand is solely for air conditioning. Grid Reliability Management has consisted of mostly turning generators on and off to create the desired available maximum power levels, rather than currently emerging programs of modifying the demand curves through pricing and other offset incentives. Large urban cooling loops (LUCL) have been installed in some progressive major urban centers to facilitate peak demand dampening by averaging both nighttime and daytime power into daytime use.These facilities are extremely expensive to build and maintain. Take several 'days' to reach their optimal operating temperature ranges on each charge cycle. Require redundancy (duality) of storage; one to accept energy while the other discharges energy due to the long charge/discharge times. Do NOT SHIFT daytime peak demand-only creating increased reliability. Large loops usually require the majority of property owners (if not all) within the urban core to participate in the system due to installation and operation expense. Loops have had minor positive effects lowering peak power demand curves in immediate loop service areas.

ThermalCUBE™ does two things extraordinarily well: ThermalCUBE™ converts inexpensive off-peak electrical energy at users' sites into thermal energy- and stores the power until needed-off setting peak daytime energy demand that is normally used for heating or cooling in both residential and commercial buildings; and also designed and programmed for use in conjunction with dynamic Renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, wave, etc., ThermalCUBE™ Systems have ability to ramp-up and integrate, absorb, and store the Renewable Producers' rogue power when produced, without contributing negative impact to the existing grid capacities. Power Aggregators purchase the Renewable energies directly at the sources and utilize our radio telemetry and secure software to activate the ThermalCUBEs™ when source(s) produce power. This turns the point of use ThermalCUBE™ storage system on to ramp-up and integrate, convert, absorb, and store the electrical energy as thermal energy for use during later non-production or peak demand times, dramatically flattening the Demand Side Management (DSM) curve.

Nighttime rates become daytime power

By utilizing the ThermalCUBE™ storage and translation ability for later use, the lower nighttime rate energy becomes the daytime thermal energy for the building at a greatly reduced cost. The economic offset-value of the system is the difference of kWh costs at nighttime vs. costs at daytime, times upwards of 60% of the building's power load. Peak Shift can be accomplished for as much as 10 hours (approx. up to 60% of the building's demand load-heat & cool). Components of ThermalCUBE™ are a scalable modularized system, with the standard module being 22 tons of thermal storage (or 77.5 kw) per CUBE, and is available with or without DX to enable plug-in capability to existing building components. This size allows for residential use with only one or two ThermalCUBEs™. Additionally, modules can be linked together for more (unlimited) capacity to optimize the system sizing for any specific building loads. ThermalCUBE™ enables building Owners and/or Utility Suppliers to use off-peak energy to meet daytime air-conditioning or heating demands, which is the primary contributor to peak energy loads. Utility Companies benefit by removing 10 hours of their daytime peak demand on a building-by-building, distributed basis, greatly reducing grid stress. Demand response shift is a directly measurable (and therefore quantifiable) value in that the number of storage units, their full-charge, & reserve capacities are known at any time, and control of the 'absorption' of the electrical energy is at a specified and controlled time and ramping rate.

Consumers of electricity are well versed in the concept of energy consumption; that is, we are billed and pay for kilowatt-hours (kWh), the use of power over a period of time. High consumption customers are often billed on other factors such as demand in kilowatts (kW), power factor (p.f.), reactive energy (volt-amperes reactive ,or VAr) and apparent energy (volt-amperes, or VA). The simplest of those factors to use is demand in kW as that value is already measured by the meter to calculate kWh for billing. It is common to track the peak consumption, or peak demand, measured during an interval (such as 15 minutes, or even a day) then report the maximum peak demanded during the billing period (such as over a month). Of these two factors, the kWh is actually the lesser of interest as this is an average value. When a utility runs out of capacity, it means that there is not enough generation and delivery infrastructure necessary to meet the instantaneous concurrent peak demand of the customers. Utilities use comprehensive software tools to estimate the expected demand based on factors such as historical average per customer load, temperature, wind speed, precipitation type and rate, to name a few. With this information, the utility can then predict the amount of generation needed to meet the expected load, where the load is made up of the demand plus the transmission and distribution losses. Spot Buying and/or Selling to make up for power shortfalls are one of the more expensive components of power supply. Peak Load Shifting greatly reduces the need for spot purchasing and selling, thereby improving the bottom line for the utility supply company. Utility Aggregators and Independent System Operators (ISOs) offer very healthy incentives (vary by region) to shift power from the peak demand schedule, paying between $400 and $750 per kw shifted to off-peak rates.

ThermalCUBE™ energy storage shifts up to ±60% of energy costs

Our energy storage systems capture lower-cost electrical energy from the power grid during the night and use this captured and converted low-cost energy to replace high-cost energy during the following day. Thermal energy is optimally stored at the point of use and committed to a specific purpose and time frame, for example, hybrid-cooling systems for buildings. Essentially the more plentiful (and less expensive) off peak nighttime electricity is committed to heating or cooling and storage of thermal energy for later use during the expensive daytime peak-demand. During the "off-peak" charge cycle, the chiller or heater circulates solution through the thermal batteries. The solution flows through the tank's heat exchanger tubes (immersed in solution), discharging around each tube.When the ThermalCUBE™energy storage system is fully charged; the heater/chiller shuts off until the next cycle. During the "on-peak" discharge cycle, (which can occur simultaneously with charging) the solution is pumped through the Thermal Cube™ energy storage system. The tempered solution is then circulated to the building load directly or through a plate and- frame heat exchanger, providing the desired tempering of the interior air. In most buildings, over half of the energy consumed is used for cooling and heating. ThermalCube™ Energy Storage Solutions shifts upwards of 60% of this energy cost from high daytime rates to money saving off-peak night-time rates (rate differentials vary by region). ThermalCUBE™ provides a fast payback on energy investment to the owner/operators, especially when combined with other energy efficiency measures.

ThermalCUBE™ Facts

ThermalCUBE™ Energy has developed a proven and patented scaleable modular-sized thermal energy storage battery that is small enough in COST and SIZE to service the average residence, but can easily be scaled to service commercial and industrial applications by adding additional battery modules. +100 installs currently in place across the US.ThermalCUBE™ is distributed off-peak energy storage at the point of use.ThermalCUBE™ removes up to 60% of a building's peak demand energy load by converting inexpensive off-peak power and storing it as thermal energy on the site of use; shifting the energy use to air conditioning and/or heating of spaces during the peak demand times.ThermalCUBE™ integrates dynamically produced Renewable energy safely into the Grid. CUBEs immediately ramp-up and flucuate their absorption to store the dynamic power coming online from the renewable sources. This minimizes renewables' negative impacts on the ​Grid.ThermalCUBE™ removes 8 to 10 hours of peak power demand daily per building/user that is normally created by the facility.ThermalCUBE™ is safe, quiet, and user friendly with minimal maintenance required.ThermalCUBE™ can be installed in minimally desired or less used spaces within a structure freeing up more precious square footage to create additional revenue production spaces.ThermalCUBE™ is compatible for install with facilities' existing equipment.ThermalCUBE™ is an appliance that stores NO electricity & has only 2 moving parts.ThermalCUBE™ is built ISO Standards, exceeding FDA, HPB, & USDA requirements.